Board Meeting 7-19-23

001you know that sounds great you are alive I've been doing audio chat okay you are good sir double check um [Music] and you are alive and unmuted good evening everybody large I'm going to call the order of 634 do a quick release the New Jersey public meeting tomorrow was imagined to ensure the right of the public to advance to this up and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which time a new business affecting your interest is discussed and act upon in accordance with these provisions and the Board of Education policies too Board of Education because notices Board of Education and any person who has requested individuals thank you what regions certainly here Mr midhaus miss high here Fullmer Erica here you're the foreign happy to welcome Miss Glenn Thornton back to Don Brooke

002she's going to take us through some training on to the gym so thank you thank you very much it's a pleasure to be back um inbound Brook you want to move down okay okay can you all see so I I'm coming tonight is really to talk about measuring student achievement what it looks like responsible for what the board's role is by looking at data for example so critically important the various kinds of data you may use to look at so why is it important there are a number of Assessments and there are a number of data points that Boards of Education can look at um number one the New Jersey student learning assessments those are required um assessments that are given to students once a year we had some time off due to covid but

003they were given again this year um there are all kinds of ways of measuring data and you can look for example to see how your district is doing on the New Jersey school performance reports every single district has a series of school performance reports that are posted every year and it looks at each School individually and there's a summary of the overall District as well and that's some place you can look at various kinds of data in addition to those standardized types of Assessments that are given in the school at the high school level obviously they're all the PSATs SATs acts that are given which are also standardized assessments that can be looked at how your students are doing and that's another way to look at it we know through research that boards that use

004data have higher levels of student achievement because it's a way to measure how well you're doing um and if you can identify through the utilization of that data and assessing that data where there are gaps for example it's very important that you then can use that information to help remediate and close those gaps for students you can identify where there has been perhaps a loss of learning or where a student hasn't been able to able to come to terms with that so you have to be cognizant of data you should use it but the one thing that I can't over emphasize is making sure that you're using data as a flashlight and not a hammer data should be used to help inform and improve not to punish penalize or disrupt okay and all too often

005sometimes districts board members may use data in a way that is not productive for the district you need to use it to help inform the instructional program to help your staff identify where they may need to do some professional development to become more Adept at the instructional techniques that they're using but again you want to make sure that you're using it as a flashlight to highlight where it is you may need to please Place additional focus and emphasis in your instructional program but you don't want to use it as a hammer um and that's something that you know oftentimes um sometimes superintendents get a little weary of sharing data because sometimes if it's not understood in the context in which in what's meant to be used um it can be detrimental okay so having reliable

006data make sure it helps you to have policies that reflect student achievement it helps you to measure what your goals are for your students it's a means though of holding everyone accountable for how well we're doing and where we need to improve further but again it should be used in a positive manner otherwise um provide opportunities to celebrate success where are we doing particularly well and let's make sure that we know that we're doing well in a particular area it also removes and depersonalizes decisions that may need to be made because it's based on hard quantifiable data it's not my opinion or your opinion it is what the data shows us needs to be done and so it can help depersonalize those decisions sometimes that's helpful especially with dealing with staff it helps you to

007make informed decisions around your budget where the needs are because it makes it very clear where there may need to be curriculum revisions or additional courses offered for example it makes it abundantly clear it's a way of involving the community to say you know here's what here's where we are here's where we're trying to go we need you to help us and here's how you can help us and making sure that they understand that as well it helps to evaluate the effectiveness of your policy in your programs keep in mind if you can't measure the success of a curriculum initiative in one year you know it takes time there's professional development involved students have to get accustomed to it staff has to get accustomed to it so know that sometimes you'll have to look at

008data you can't analyze a new curriculum at the end of the first year and say oh that was a disaster where oh it was a wonderful success because you have to look at it it over time to fairly measure its success okay it will help you to identify both the challenges and possible solutions to it okay two different really different types of data that you need to look at most of what I've just talked about is quantifiable data that can be measured it's hard data people like to talk about as being hard data whereas qualitative data is thought to be quote Soft Data or softer data that doesn't mean it's antidotes right it's other kinds of measurements of things Beyond academic skills that are important for 21st Century Learning and important for our students to

009be able to do okay so that kind of qualitative data comes from Gathering one-on-one interviews focus groups surveys for General observations over time but it's not my saying well let me tell you how my daughter did Mrs Smith's clients that's an antidote right it's true for my child but it doesn't make the true universally and it's not a large sampling it's one person's opinion okay and you can't just go on that which is not to say that my opinion is infinitely valuable to you however for Mrs Smith it probably has nothing to do with reality okay so you know what are the different kinds of Assessments of data you're going to look at there are learning reference tests there are Criterion reference tests for performance-based tests achievement test versus aptitude it measures what you've learned

010aptitude measures potential to learn for example okay disaggregated data with the upcoming of No Child Left Behind which was the first real Federal foray beyond the idea which proceeded nclb No Child Left Behind was the very first time the districts were required to disaggregate data to take the data and separate it by gender English language Learners low socioeconomic groups um all kinds of different classifications of students to better be able to identify if there were certain folks who perhaps from lack of opportunity to access courses perhaps it may be for example that the assessments were being given in English and in English is not your first language obviously much more difficult I just tell this antidote all the time because it makes me laugh I picked up one of my children from a High School

011exam it was Spanish that day I said well how'd the exam go she said my mom it wasn't in English okay that's from an English speaker so think how kids whose language first language is not English would feel taking an entire assessed battery of assessments on a regular basis can be challenging um looking at longitudinal data of a child over time so that you can see the growth and development and measure the progress is something that is very helpful and until this aggregated data was put into place by No Child Left Behind I was a board member at the second No Child Left Behind didn't exist and we would get the scores and we'd look at them and say oh 93 of the students achieve proficiency on whatever particular assessment there was in those days

012because we had a multitude of different assessments through the years and we all felt really accomplished until someone said to me that's great except for the if you're the parents of one of that seven percent of kids there's not so it and and no one ever said you know you need to look at every child but that is the point and now we have the every child's which followed No Child Left Behind it's really in the reauthorization that the elementary and secondary Education Act which has very specific requirements around it the same way no job right behind it and it does require have these data and they've actually expanded the number of subgroups that you have to measure now some districts don't have enough population and in New Jersey our group number for deciding data

013last time I checked was 20 students it was interesting because if you compare States and rate states based on their education for example with No Child Left Behind the end number for the subgroups right we had to measure in Florida for example when it was started was a hundred kids well based on that you don't have to do very much Division and it makes your District look much better in many ways on some of those standardized assessments but New Jersey who's always been number one or two in the country for Education trading with Massachusetts typically on and off through the years has an in-group of only 20. so and that says we're paying attention to every child which is then I think all of you should be very pleased about there are formative assessments we

014show what you what you may know now but but don't note completely and summative assessments that are given for example at the end of a unit so you might give a formative think of that as a pre-test taught and obstructed on the material and then you would take a summative assessment which it shows what you know and what you have learned over time so those are the kinds of Assessments that are given formative and summative assessments are routinely given by teachers in their classrooms in order to see where students are the beauty of those kinds of Assessments is that you can then remediate right away one of the difficulties with the standardized assessment is they generally come back the delay between taking the assessment and having the return is too far apart to enable teachers

015to go back and immediately correct any kind of misunderstanding or help a child who may have missed a cellular Point somewhere along the road when they develop the park assessments which predated the New Jersey student learning assessments and some people refer to njsla the New Jersey has part light nonetheless they promised districts that they would have the results back from Park in two weeks I was so excited as a former educator I'll get it back I would be able to then go into my classroom with my kids and I would be able to you know remediate and accelerate those kids who already Ed and remediate those kids who may have missed some things and it never happened wants to not anywhere and so that's one of the challenges of the standardized assessments is you get

016the data back but you don't get it back in live time during the course of a school year you can use that data hopefully for moving students forward and placing them in the subsequent years classrooms depending upon how you do your students but it's not really helpful in terms of immediate which would be much better okay um you also know we have New Jersey achieved teacher evaluation models and now some of their evaluation is tied to sgos student growth objectives or sgps pieces that's something that again is another measurement that's determined by the teacher in collaboration with their principal or their um department chair or supervisor whoever is working with the teachers on that um and so you can then look at student growth percentiles as a whole to see how a whole cohort of

017kids like all of fourth grade or all the fifth grade um is moving along that continuum so other kinds of performance indicators that we would that are quantifiable in some way but also qualitative um that you might want to look at graduation rates post graduation college enrollment rates and persistence in college we now have that we're now measuring that as well it's one thing to get into school but how long do you stay in school do you have that persistence to continue and move toward graduation looking at your co-curricular participation rates if you're trying to look at your school culture and climate looking at your co-curricular participation rates is one of the ways that you could look at and say you know are we engaging our kids are they here after school are they engaged

018beyond the classroom which we know um those kids who tend to be involved in co-curricular activities tend to have higher levels of student achievement and it doesn't have to be Athletics you know it can be mock trial it could be the debate Club it can be any drama group it can be any number of things whatever engages kids looking at your HIV rates suspension and expulsions again another way of looking at hardly doing in terms of a climate how are we doing in terms of supporting students mental health and ensuring particularly now that we're returned to Covenant you know that we're not having disciplined issues looking at your students and staff attendance rates if your students and staff attendance rates are in the 90s it probably means your district is a good place to be

019okay staff want to be there students want to be there and they're there on a regular basis that's the kind that kind of data is very helpful in looking at what is you know how is our staff morale how do we know how what that looks like well what are the ways you can measure that you know I have districts where 40 to 50 percent absentee rate among staff that interferes with the continuity of instructions so no matter how good your program is right and that you have in place the curriculum if students and staff aren't there they can't learn so those are some of the kinds of things looking at community service participation rates some districts have mandatory community service most districts don't have mandatory so looking at that as well is another way

020of saying how well are we doing with having students understand the importance of giving back to their community of being empathetic giving individuals all kinds of character traits that parents and Educators would love to have um in their students so those are some of the kinds of things that you can look at again your school performance reports aren't loaded with David the number of Faculty to students you can look at the amount of technology or you know mostly now all districts are one-to-one so it's probably less important today than it was pre-covered but that used to be a number that you could look at to see how much technology your District had versus another District and so those are things you can look at the number of students in AP classes for example or IB

021if you have international Baccalaureate those are other measures to look at you know how are a high achieving students doing the number of students that take AP and IB classes and one of the things I would caution all of you about is that you know data you know numbers don't lie people do okay and one of the things sometimes the boards of Education will do is to say we really want to have our district higher up on some survey that's out there right some national sort of U.S news and World Report New Jersey magazine I was doing District goal setting once in a district and one of their goals that they wanted to achieve was to increase the number of students who took AP test so I started to write the goal for them and

022I said okay the number of students who achieve a three four or five and I said no Glenn that's not all we want so what do you mean that's not what we want just want to increase the number of students that takes a test and I said that doesn't make any sense to me this is an educator and one of the board members was actually an assistant superintendent and it's now current superintendent um and I said you know that that doesn't tell you anything and the board members said oh yes it does because New Jersey magazine you get higher rankings like base one of the criteria is the number of students who took an AP assessment didn't matter if they got a one or a two it just mattered that they they sat for the

023assessment which also by the way costs money right um so that is a limiting factor there for kids at least in those days so you have to really look at some of those and see what metrics those organizations are using to make those determinations before you decide that this is you know the end-all to be all and we have to be number one on this where we need to improve on that you have to carefully what metrics what data they're looking at to achieve achieve because sometimes they pick funky data that made no sense you didn't get any college credit if you didn't score a three four or five mostly a four or five it just didn't do anything it didn't say you learned anything now I'm assuming they all learned something but it didn't

024show that so you have to really be careful about those networks so one of the things you need to think about what matters most in your community because what you measure is what matters right and that's important to know so if you highlight something as being important enough to measure as a district internally I'm not talking about because the school performance reports will be the school performance reports but what matters here right having that discussion is it class size is having reasonable circumstances in some districts that's a huge piece that's really important to look at class sizes across the district we know that students tend to do better in smaller class sizes especially at the early primary levels like Pre-K to third grade right when you're doing those foundational skills that smaller class sizes lead

025to Greater levels of student achievement so thinking about that School Safety and Security I don't think that that even parents mind talking about it Beyond to say you're going to have to do everything that you possibly can to put into place those measures that will keep your students safe and secure as best we all can these days School quality teacher qualifications okay are all of your teachers teaching in their certificated areas or some of them teaching outside of birth certificated areas sometimes you have to get staff that are you know have emergency certs are they working to become permanently certified in that particular area I understand we have teacher shortages particularly in specific areas bilingual education special education um those are tough higher level mathematics courses physics you know somebody who's tool certified in Mandarin

026Chinese and physics AP can probably write their own ticket there are a lot of those folks out there I don't know of any in the state but it would be looking at your course offerings do you have enough CTE programs Career and Technical education programs to offer alternate pathways to all of your students so looking at that data how many kids are in that area where perhaps you're offering dual enrollment and offering college credit to kids at the same time they're in high school they're also gaining college credits which long-term economically is a win for parents and students less college debt and hopefully will increase College persistence when they're not worrying about the cost as much again some folks you know look at the percentage of students who have A's and B's um or our

027honors students and that may be really important again students and computers are you one-to-one are you not one-to-one most districts now satisfaction how do you measure that well you can survey them students would probably fall over if they were surveyed and really asked what is it you like best what do you like least what would make things better looking at your per pupil spending this is a number that's really important to look at again you know different schools within a school district can have different needs dependent upon the demographic composition of students within a school and I know in my district when I sat on the board we were so delighted when we could finally say every one of our 10 elementary schools here's the per pupil amount for each of these kids in all

02810 schools aren't we doing a great job and the answer was no we weren't really because there were schools that had greater numbers of economically disadvantaged students greater numbers of students who were English was not their first language you know the PTO where my kids went to school could earn thirty thousand dollars in a gift wrap sale that wasn't necessarily true for every school across the district and so making sure that you are providing Equitable amounts of spending per student in order each child to enable each child's reach his or her potential should really be the Benchmark so looking at it in that way not just we're giving 21.17 per child for Supply that's not going to help okay um parent involvement we know that having Greater Community and public engagement in a school district

029again leads to higher levels of student achievement parents are involved understand the needs of their children want their children and every parent wants regarding Guardian to their child to succeed but if they're engaged with the district and connected in some way they are more likely to have successful children so how do you Foster that how do you measure that well look at the number of programs that you offer through the PGA ptos do you have ptos ptas or home school associations whichever um within each of your buildings are they well attended are they running activities that support students education Field Days the kinds of things that ptos ptas hsas do all of those things you need to think about in your District what's really the most critical pieces for you to focus on in terms

030of looking at the data and measure that so that you know because what you're looking to see keep in mind also that some there are some pieces of data that are there's a correlation but not a direct causation so typically if your high school rate graduation rate goes up the dropout rate Journal is decreasing and if the high school graduation rate is decreasing the dropout rate might be increasing doesn't mean they're directly related absolutely but they're of course there's correlation there so what's causing that and then how do we fix it so not looking at any one number in isolation but looking at various types of pieces together is most helpful and again using that data to help inform and improve okay so you know putting it in charts probably so that you can see

031patterns is most helpful a lot of districts have gone to using data dashboards um with actually red yellow and green as a line to the stop lights that are out there um is a really helpful way and helpful also for your community to be able to look at that data and understand it more clearly because everyone know red needs stop we're doing better but we're not where we need to be and green is we're hit hitting the mark where we want to be in whatever set of data points you're looking at and so that's a very helpful way to do it again looking at that to segregated data in different categories to see who's achieving and who's not and then making sure you're using your resources appropriately um to bring up those kids who aren't

032you know for a while and No Child Left Behind when they had to make adequate yearly progress one of the things that districts did was to look at kids who were on the cusp they called them cusp kids right and those kids who needed just a little push to get to proficient so instead of worrying about the kids who are not proficient at all those students who were partially proficient and work to push them over the top rather than have you distribute the implicit in those left behind I understand the methodology I understand the logic given the times of doing that but I will tell you that that's not a sound educational utilization of data right because you need to look at those kids who are in greatest need and make sure you're moving not

033just the kids who are on the cusp but every child along the Continuum it's much harder too if this child is proficient to move them into advanced proficient right but you need to push those kids as well right everyone needs that push to achieve their full potential looking at Trends in data year over year is helpful as well because again new programming and initiative takes time to really come to full fruition and so looking at data just in a single year may not give you a full picture of what's going on in your District so looking at it over time is very helpful again you know one of the things the state did for a very brief period of time was they identified I think it was only done one or two years in the

034school performance reports which that's what they're called now they used to be called the school report card they identified districts that were comparable to you now that could mean a Bound Brook that you were being compared to a district you know Bergen County the district down in South Jersey that you've never heard of no one was ever able to put it in logic where they came up with those comparable districts because in not Bergen County and you're not Salem County it never made any sense they eliminated that however we all have that notion that somehow we need to compare ourselves to the district next to us the down the road from us and what I would tell you is that every district is unique and you need to focus on what you need to do

035for your kids and it's not about comparing yourselves to the district next door or one County over um and and fortunately I think the state finally woke up and said well that really didn't make much sense I had board members calling me saying where the heck is Lumberton places they had never heard of lower Alloys Creek they have no idea um and and so it became really just crazy they gave that up Wards okay so here's one way because how data is presented matters um and here's one way to do it again proficient is getting there improved over time you know and then are they doing better or worse for an individual child okay in math this child exceeded the standard did not improve in one instance was doing much better than others but you

036can color code it for the families so that they can understand it because sometimes it is great to people and they don't know what it is they're reading so I'm thinking about whether you're ready to use data um do you regularly review it to see if you are achieving your District goals um to understand how to disaggregate data and why that's important and I'm sure that a lot of you do know the difference between the different kinds of tests and what they mean you know looking at an aptitude test is not the same thing it's looking at an achievement test looking for Trends and data over time again sometimes it's very difficult or a patient we want kids to grow we need to make sure we understand we're not making widgets right we're educating children

037education is developmental people come to understandings in different ways over different times I waited 12 years to get mathematics it took more than that to get there it's developed and I had a brother that was an engineer I read the bookstream he helped me with my math he wouldn't have gotten through school education is Developmental and it just takes time okay um your superintendent's willingness to share data with the board okay to happen because you can't know for certain where you are without that hard data okay you should discuss that data together and determine and listen to what the programs and the plans are to address those areas where you've identified there may be gaps using multiple indicators to analyze student I can't tell you how important that is standardized assessments are what one measure

038there are all kinds of ways of measuring student projects you know the ability some people don't take tests well but if you talk to them and you ask them the same material that's on that assessment they can give you the right answers but they may not take tests well they may be more gifted or early than they are in the written so having multiple measures of performance over time and most teachers make an effort and clearly offer those multi whether it's a project whether it's an oral report whether it's a presentation to the class you know so that there are different ways to measure what students have learned and achieved over time it's a really important piece to keep in mind and you know if those are things that your board is ready to think

039about then certainly using data is important so how do you what how do you use it will you review the district data um when you do your goal setting you gather that data you ask a lot of questions and see if there's any other kinds of data that would be useful that perhaps you haven't thought to include um before you make that analysis identify the next steps what do we need to do now we've identified a gap where we've identified the strength how do we get more kids to take this particular class because clearly kids are excellent in this area and we ought to offer that more broadly right um and then again it's a whole cycle and it really mirrors the cycle of goal setting right you set your goals you've spent the year

040working up toward the achievement of those goals you evaluated at the end of that year and say okay what do we need to do differently how can we do this better and use data to help drive those decisions it's really not so complicated um I've included a glossary in your packet of all of the different kinds of tests educator a lot of those terms could be like what and go right over the top of your head um and so it's helpful to have that that's why I've included it it's not meant to be all inclusive but it's just meant to help you think about the different kinds of data that are available to you um so that you know what it is that you are looking at some of the essentials that questions to ask

041what's the data examine view did it identify students what trends have we identified um what percentage of our students are not meeting those State performance targets like it or not States there's us against us okay and so we have to be cognitive of that and work towards what strategies does the district employee to improve subgroup performance and achievement how will the data be communicated to the community and here's a really important piece what training additional professional development does our staff need in order to be more proficient in instructional programs because the single most important component to recruiting student achievement is the quality of instruction followed secondly by the culture and climate of the school so those two pieces in combination if they're all working together are going to ensure that your students are successful and

042then you know are there any curriculum adjustments or revisions that we need to make perhaps you know we're approaching this from the wrong perspective perhaps we need to add a different type of course for students so thinking about all of those things as a board member and asking those questions those are all appropriate questions so you know ensuring that you have a vision in place of students should achieve to be able to articulate that what matters to you as a board in a community that your students have to know and be able to do and I know they have to have so many Carnegie units we still have all those credits for graduation but what's really important is how well prepared are they for the next step in their life whatever that looks like whether

043it's college career the military whatever it is they're going to do you want to make sure that when they go out these doors they are well prepared for this world which continues to change ensure that there's a structure of policies and resources to support Improvement making sure that in your budget you're providing the adequate resources for Staffing materials I was just in a district and their budget's in tough shape my teachers don't have the resources that they really need for their kids and it's really sad making sure that you're holding yourselves accountable for ensuring that you have those goals in places that you've provided enough resources within the budget and I know that there are limitations to every District budget but making sure that those student achievement pieces are funded okay because that is what

044we're here to do and making sure that you're advocating for all students in your community for kids who are high flyers for kids who are struggling for those kids in the middle who oftentimes get left in the dust because they're good kids they don't make a lot of noise they continue to plot along they are as important as those kids who are at the top or those kids who are struggling um in the tailwind and so making sure you're advocating for all the students in your community incredibly important and that's something that's getting a lot of heat out there but it really is important to provide Equitable access and opportunities for all students because in education Equitable needs an opportunity it doesn't be equal outcomes but it needs equal access to opportunities and that's what's

045important is that we need to provide that for all students all the time outcomes may not look the same but they had an opportunity and they have grown and learned through that opportunity okay how was your role different than the superintendents you know we like to beat you over the head about this um you develop the goals you said what's important but the how that's the responsibility of your Administration and professional staff action plans are developed by your Administration as to how they're going to move from where you are today to where you've identified you want to be in the next school year um progress making sure that through the course of the Year we're getting updates and talking about the progress that's being made oftentimes words don't ask that question but it's important to

046know because you can't make a course correction it if you need to if you're not aware of where you are and so having those updates is important we've talked about having policy and resources and again you know at the end of the year reviewing reevaluating and perhaps revising or recalibrating however you would like to think but that's a really important at the end of every school year what worked what didn't work what do we need to do differently how can we do this more effectively how can we be better at the work that we're doing um you hold the superintendent accountable through the superintendent's evaluation you hold yourselves accountable for your performance on the board self-evaluation and we've already held all of our students accountable and our staff staff through evaluations and the students through

047all kinds of Assessments through the course of the year so you are massively accountable but you want to make sure that you're using data to make sure you are successful in those efforts um again you know having a planning calendar and I included in your packet the annual calendar which I think I've given to you all before but I continue to give to you um just because I think it helps to structure the four year and help you remember what takes place when and we've been through all of these things before but again you know having those updates on progress two to three times a year will help you greatly to know where you are you know so that the end of the year shouldn't be a surprise to anybody and you don't want that

048to happen either what do you mean we're here how did we get here you mean all year we didn't know we were getting here and that's where we are so again it goes to no surprises for either the parents the community the staff we want to have those reviews about the data and and to help identify those Improvement pieces that you need to have done because they're important to have so thank you I mean this is not meant to be long and complicated data can be really helpful and I know I keep saying this but because we've seen it go down we've got Scenic on where it's gone South a couple of times in multiple places use the data to help inform to improve instruction to make things better it's not meant to be the

049Amber to penalize people or castigate them right you want that data to help kids learn more and do more questions so let me just start by saying thank you who's a really great important presentation of making some timely as you go through the calendar we're about to set up for the next year [Music] my pleasure it is wonderful to see all of you um if I noticed you before I'm counting on seeing some of you at least in October at Workshop is going to be four days this year again which is very exciting because last year we were back in person for the first time in two years but only for three days and we're back to four days so it will be very worthwhile there are multiple trainings offered in all kinds of areas

050if you've never been and you have an opportunity to go I would encourage you to do that we think it's the best program that we offer all year long and provides you with opportunities for learning and networking with Educators and other board members from all across the state of teachers so thank you and if you need anything you know how to get me and I'm always around to answer questions any last questions well enjoy the rest of your summer hopefully the sun will shine the rain will stop you're welcome so I'll be there in a second quad s everything just the fact that uh we're very excited about our summer programs we have a lot of great things going on with big adjustments part of the adjustment was submitting so that students who were coming

051for quote unquote remediation felt that they enjoyed School while still having targeted instruction areas they needed support and we've been very successful at it so far the students have been having teachers have been focused on specific standards from these State assessments and so far it's been really good with the students have enjoyed it we're looking forward to the continuations thank you at this point I'm going to keep checking with hours [Music] good so we are up to completion reports first one was education thank you okay I would rather long at detail report tonight we had a really great presentation that's going on in our summer programs this year they are very different from last year so they have really good PowerPoint presentation for us to show us everything that has changed and how it's working

052so far so first who what students are there we have those who are struggling academically we have English language Learners we have those with special needs and we also have kids who are interested in acceleration and enrichments um we had a great taste since it's falling seven and eight is taking place at the high school they had one hour of ela one hour event and then at the end of the day they had one hour of stem PE or art which was added this year as Dr Freeman actually just mentioned because we wanted kids to have more of a sense of fun and not punishment while they're there they're also planning an end of the summer barbecue to incentivize attendance and as of our committee meeting attendance was very good so I know as someone

053who's taught summer school that that can often be a problem getting kids to to attend so so far things have been really good on that front uh they invited for about 45 students per grade which was much higher than it has been in the past week in previous years they've only been fighting about 15 to 20 kids per grade so we're able to include more students we're able to include kids um or little in more into the middle from the from the bottom from the kids who are struggling towards the middle of the pack and uh we got about 30 kids per grade to accept an attendance at the at each grade level those are approximate numbers but again way up from previous years we have a lot more kids attending um they're using i-Ready

054math is using a program called hand to mind which is a Hands-On um program Ela is doing novel studies and instead they're using something called National inventors Hall of Fame stepkins we also have in addition to the students who are getting all kinds of benefits from this we also have teacher leaders on site and these are people who have administrative certificates or are working towards administrative certificates so that in addition to helping the students we're giving them kind of an opportunity to implement the programs that they're learning and the strategies that they're learning to become leaders going forward so not only are we getting students the experience that they need but also teachers the experience as well okay so that's who's there um by the way if I say anything wrong feel free to Jump

055Right In okay so in math we are focusing so there was a data presentation which is amazing there's this giant chart and basically they went through every standard and figured out which standards less than 50 of our students are proficient at each grade level and those are the standards that we're focusing on so of the students attended you know are less than 50 proficient we're going to hammer that that standard and see at the end of the summer when we give them a partial retake which ultimately in a second how are we doing like did we did we hit those standards so every standard has lessons pulled from i-Ready they also have mini lessons and like I said at the end of the summer they're going to take each kit will take a partial retake

056so they're going to take retake all the questions that they got wrong at the beginning to see after five weeks what kind of improvement we will see so hopefully I would say at the end of the summer we'll have that data and I'm sure there'll be a giant chart again it'll be amazing that I'm telling the data that was presented was unbelievable it was so well done so well organized we're doing novel studies we're trying to develop more critical thinking um answer higher level questions or writing skills which if you've ever taught Ela or had a student a child who struggled in La you know those are the areas that most kids do struggle with is those higher level thinking skills and language arts um at the high school level uh as the state kind

057of mandates we are working on credit recovery for those who have to you know have their credit cover recover Credit in order to graduate in you know all the time so that's more of a statement we don't have a lot of control over what we can do there we also have esy from uh if you don't know what that is that's extended school year going on from grade 2K through 12 labs for special education students who have that in their IEP they get an extra month from school and that's going on at Le Mans okay I know it's a lot it is a lot we also have helped with students who are in high school who took the um was it uh GPA the new the new yeah the new the new graduation test those

058who didn't pass and need to create a portfolio you may remember that we have people there helping those students put those portfolios together normally that would be done as a class in the fall but we had a lot of kids say let's get it out of the way over the summer so we have some teachers there which is great because not only does it kind of put those students Minds at ease but it also helps us with our course load in the fall reducing maybe a teacher to from having to you know give that class we can use them somewhere else and students are on board again you see that shift in mindset here where students are are in in the summer programs and many of them are volunteering to be there because they see

059the benefits um we had this one's a little crazy for me even as a math teacher we also have pre-cap one and two acceleration classes which students asked for because they want to get into calculus uh in the fall and they asked to take these glasses and many of them are taking both of them this Summer precap one and two God bless them that's all I can say good for you I mean that is wonderful and it's that is a lot of work to do in the summer but that's what some students wanted to do that this summer so that we are offering it we also have the enrichment camps going on which have stem or Robotics and art and music those are smaller classes we have teacher leaders there as well and the last

060thing we have going on which will be later in the summer we'll have our freshman orientation later in the summer which we'll be using the challenge day program with which promotes things like social awareness and relationship skills and self-management and decision making and it's really like how to be a student how to be a productive member of the school Community things like that um and it's a really good program so that will be later in the session so that wasn't the first presentation that Mr Ross came in and gave us our second presentation which was on his um CTE workbased against Career Technical and education and work based learning you want to give us an update on how that's going so he has 90 kids voluntarily attending uh on Friday mornings from 8 to 11.

061for eight weeks the college career Readiness now broke where they help kids with everything hope spread that could be filling out your college applications that could be filling out your military applications that could be filling out things for scholarships for financial aid they're going to get these kids ready and again these are kids who are volunteering because they see the value we've had so much this is not just about our thing but in education we just there's just so much money out there that kids don't even know exists for scholarships and we're not helping kids find that money and along the lines this past year we weren't really sure with the coven years how it was going to go we actually had our American scholarships received by our students this year increased by over two

062million dollars from the previous year and then of course that's a lot of our students but it's also a lot of our staff helping them find that money um we also had or are seen over the course of the last four years a giant increase in the number of students attending a four-year college so I put the numbers in the notes on board docs but in 2020 of course uh coveted only 20 of our students went to a four-year University there's a very large number going to community college and staying home as one would expect that year then it jumped to 30 the next year 36 with the class of 22 and this year we went from 36 to 46 and we're seeing a lot of really prestigious universities there as well we also have

06315 ESL students who are going to attend rbcc for free this year coming up um so we have a lot going on there what's the next one let's see oh and then we have 20 students who are attending a six-speed program who are not only learning things like EKG and CPR and becoming certified nurse assistant but they're getting paid twelve hundred dollars to take the class so mainly for them and the last thing I have in my notes for education was that he uh Mr Ross wanted to give us a quick update on our dual credit we had seven different something 19 courses in seven and seven different subjects I don't know if you all were here for this or remember it but we're a partnered with Stockton this year as well and not only

064do we have those students taking that classes but we also now have teachers earning master's degrees from soccer um I believe he said they were free in their content area so we have a lot going on so that was what's going on in the summer and going forward um it was and I'm not even giving you everything I was taking notes as fast as I could it was amazing I mean the things that they are doing this summer I know nothing that summer programs before now every district has several programs but it was really incredible it was one of the best presentations I've ever seen nurse it was it was it made me very optimistic foreign [Music] year there wasn't one students who earned about a million dollars for yourself who's going to NYU for

065free for free was able to find that I believe the executive was 999 000 in financially in scholarship unfortunately she could only use but but she's included in that number any questions um can you hear me okay the question I have is with the portfolio program how many students are we talking about [Music] I just I was just curious yeah yeah and great presentation this thank you it was nothing I'm sure increasing volume of opportunities uh really is the idea that many of the techniques and tools that the teachers are using are really the sandbox for things that couldn't introduced so this is an opportunity to get some of the staff Hands-On with some of these different techniques and have them serve as Leaders throughout the teaching communities any other questions from Mike education but

066still at least I'll give you a break I think uh governance is much shorter I think it happens pretty goodly so the first thing that is on tonight's agenda is the first three to hopefully you were able to read it is that our new UC facilities agreement has been updated and it's there for you to read I would encourage you all to read it before we formally adoptedly the audience but everything is in there it is comprehensive it talks about our interior system where we are doing different entities based on their involvement interview so so tier one would be District sponsored activities and then tier two would be considered Associates without schools like booster clubs and all the way down so it's here which is for-profit outside organization so we work our way through uh

067for priority and for free and there is there's a matrix in there that you can see those fees uh it includes things like security damage custodial fees Insurance everything is in there it is it was in a previous weekend report but it's also on tonight's agendas you can see there unfortunately we could not find any record of how much revenue we had produced uh rented out our facilities in the past that we don't have a way to anticipate how much revenue this one will generate so after a good amount I would say a year we will revisit that and see if this is something that's going to generate Revenue but it's just something that's itself how we can use it in that way finding so we're not sure about that again okay the Titanic email

068everybody but I want to double check just in case you you are able to complete the board's self-evaluation now I did it before I emailed you guys to see how it would take important about 45 minutes it's very much like the superintendent evaluation so you know the format it's right on the njsba website at the bottom on the right hand side click through a few things use the same username and the password that you guys yes so that we can use the results that are names so the first Monday of August so that we could be governance just to make sure um [Music] we also have to plan and schedule our summer retreats which is where we will create goals for the coming school year we'll also discuss that this year it's a new Five-Year

069Plan just if we want to follow the same uh format that we used last year last year we used our I guess it was calling us more needing staying after the board meeting for night one and then came back the following night this even though it would be August 16th at 7 . I'm not gonna ask everybody to check your calendar now especially since we have two members who are here but that would be like first proposal would be if we could all do 16th and 17. we're already here the 16th annuity but with not we can look at other dates but I'll send out an email to get everybody's availability on those things so just write those down and take a look uh next so you would have actually but you had a question

070about available at jsta workshops that you had to ask about I wasn't sure exactly what you were asking but I just want to be there you should be getting emails I was kind of wondering although now I know the answer to it is what is um what is required of us okay you know so as long as we have that governance Etc okay next is um children let me see the city where she had volunteered to set up a fire to everybody to see who's interested from there he has volunteered to take care of us and book all of our lodging and take care of everything for us so all we have to do is reply to his email once he sends it let him know that you want to be there and I attended

071last year and it is well worth the time I was not able to attend for the three days in advance for it I'll probably go down Monday night say Tuesday Wednesday and then come back work so you don't have to stay the whole time but go as long as you can I mean you can go to I think you can get to as many as six or eight trainings per day and a lot of them are well worth I attended as many as I could for sure and I know Mr Jimmy is interested in possibly presenting something as well yes but I think in the future it might be a reasonable thing for us to do so that we can demonstrate something that we have and the last Administration is something that you know a

072little bit more about and that is the delegate assembly which is leadership they have a virtual option so you do not have to leave your house and the reason that this is especially important for many of us on this board is that this is something that's required in order to become a certified board member and many of us if you do attend convention in October this would probably be the list would be to vote so it's Saturday December 2nd sometime in the morning you know that you've said and you can do it from home for those of you who aren't attending person I think it's down in traffic this is the njspa building and assembly services so I think this is something that all districts that are part of this and jsba have an opportunity

073to do and each district does get a vote this year they want to be exercising hours and I think it's just important for us to participate in the extensive process again in all these great uh that we have so um by all means let's get the maximum value any questions okay moving on to Human Resources I'll try and be brief uh we talked about four different topics the first one has new open positions and transcripts and the equivalent hiring strategy that's expected there you saw a number of administrative transfers on the June agenda you see even more on this agenda as well as new positions are being hired so that's something that the committee continues to Monitor and work with the administration rules are again to increase longevity to the extent that we can and

074continuing that this District as desirable logistically as possible for producing some turnover and then also to continue to staff up for all the new positions uh second thing we talked about was the new role of assistance business administrator and grants manager um appreciated that is you'll see a variety of simple layouts agenda this evening and the last thing was there was a board of health issues that needed to be dealt without a majority of some of the twitch and ultimately it will help us continue to improve the conditions inside any questions or comments for HR did you talk you talk to everybody right now so the next up is operations and I'll give a report just on Roger's behalf the first thing that I will note is that we reviewed presenting the investment returns and

075the current interest rates for anybody who's talking for any markets the prime interest rates are continuing to increase and can make stabilize a little bit right now um we're on track at this point to exceed over 300 000 uh just with interest alone on low risk Investments or CTS um and that's something that Mr probation and his team will continue to pursue and hopefully continue to provide an additional funding for the district so again these are the ones that because we have a dash on the sidelines uh thousands of dollars so uh um you'll see two purchase Consortium uh items on the agenda for this evening the first one is Omni of Partners this is a Consortium that we've actually joined several years ago continued participation requires the board to re-authorize it uh the expectations

076that we will be able to use this Consortium for purchasing some very specific things like athletic programs and equipment that they do a really good job as well so that is being recommended for approved by the community the second purchase Consortium is educational data services this one does have a 15 it's about eight thousand dollars annually but it has the opportunity to save us many many times in terms of reducing the cost of things that were already pushed which is basically all sorts of supplies again keeping prices down keeping down our administrative type of efforts eliminating the need for us so again that's being recommended by Community that's on the agenda tonight the last thing we talked about had to do with the Hazardous release is a big Mentor has been material what they really

077should say and with that any questions try I have three different points of reference here so for extracurricular activities and um you know the committee members actually had the opportunity to sit and reflect on what we've learned so far in terms of our discussions with Mr Shield Administration specific levels uh the first one has to do with some general comments around program Administration how do we review the assess of the programs that we have whether that's through satisfaction measurement uh or participation it's really starting to open in on what we think we think says ultimately measured that and uh we talked about some ideas around common branding and really that has been a little bit with the way that we present ourselves to the outside community so I'm not making every coach or every uh

078extracurricular program come up with their logo or try to understand whether you're using about what brands make that a little bit easier by making it easier for you to run to these programs it provides a more consistent perspective and experience for the outside world it helps people just at a glance understanding that yes this really is a program that's included by uh and then the last thing we talked about was really helping to understand for the entrepreneur supports perspective what some common things from our coaches are and the potentials coaches counseling so that we can really get everybody to the table and start to attack some of these common issues as a group so those are the three things that I think the generations we're going to try and focus in on um any questions

079on extracurricular news happening I'm getting it right everyone okay yeah at this point we are open to the public the agenda thank you anybody true talking about online agenda items are open to the public uh none that provided the necessary information for first and last name okay so we have Anonymous comments yes take those okay um okay uh why is Melissa Sergo being hired as a soccer coach when Mr bender and Miss Kasabian both applied for the position the two of them have both played soccer while Anthony has not should we not be hiring someone that is actually qualified what are his qualifications to coach soccer Trinity at least have some knowledge of the game or perhaps have played the game this is a feeder for our high school program shouldn't we be taking this

080a little more seriously thanks we are up to item 6.1 approval for minutes from June 20th 2023. report of education on Recreations meetings regular executive sessions from June 20th second second thank you any discussion yes this is awesome yes yes hi yes Mr Goldberg yes and Mr introducing yes item 7.1 be a result that the superintendent recommends for approval the resolution is outlined in the district Personnel resolutions [Music] thank you through 7.30 question thank you Mr battle a second thank you Mr fash yes this is awesome yes it's Lima with an abstention on the asterisks double esters [Music] exclusive yes yes hi yes Mr Goldberg yes Mr introduce yes thank you it doesn't look like we actually have any resolution to believe in Section 8 moving forward to 9.1 be a result of the development

081of education through this resolutions action resolutions this is 9.2 or 9.21 Evolution excuse me Mr Jones yes um just a point of correction on the agenda item 9.5 the attachment and the resolution should read in agreement between net data and the Bound Brook Board of Education apologize so that we didn't have time to our appreciation thank you so I believe I had asked for it thank you just about a second responsible discussion so I will just ask one questions I know that one of the items that was reviewed by our Auditors I think reports had to do Administration around transfers I know that both item 9.17 and yes sir just for everybody who's understanding transfers that fall under 10 of the advertised appropriation line item for that specific account um just require a board of

082education approval if the transfer exceeds 10 of the advertised account appropriation that it requires County Department of Education approval and this year to my recollection we have sought County approval um at least twice because as you said there have there has been some swings in some of the accounts that was uh identified one of the big ones was the tuition account there was an appropriate charge of tuition federal state grants which left a available bounce that could have been used for other programs thank you so I think it's just important for everybody to note that with the new team that we have in place on the business administration side some of the items that were limited in our prior Financial audits should now be taken care of participants so thank you Mr Wilson any other

083comments or questions on any of the items in section 9 one quick thing sets of board secretary and treasure reports in this agenda one is for the 11 months ending May 31st and one is the full year summary for the 12 months and the June 30. 2023. Mr battle yes this is awesome yes Miss Lima yes exclusive yes thank you we're up to the article number 10 this would be other matters to come before the Lord uh just one thing quickly I'll do this in new business oh sure however you you got it wherever you wanted to move it forward wherever you want to play it you put it there um just today uh yeah three hours to go to the police department put on Facebook that uh National Night Out is coming up on

084August 1st last year at that event uh we had talked to the police department about possibly putting a booth together for the district to have something out there I don't even know what exactly we would have but someone just sit and talk to it sounds like something Lisa might be interested in honestly as you know community outreach I just want to throw it out there that they posted on Facebook and um to uh get in touch with him if you want to have a booth might be something to look into You're Now open to the public not agenda there are none online so we are now ready to move into executive session into an executive session I believe we are under 2.3 I don't know which provisions okay I believe it's one three seven years

085oh I'm going to give the motion to Mr Dawson the second Mr Brown all in favor aye thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign because if you are unmuted all right everybody sorry it's okay uh item 14.1 be a result of the Bound Brook Board of Education approves the resolutions has outlined the HIV cases yes it's Muslim yes Mr Smith house yes it's high yes yes yes thank you and 15.1 be a result HIV cases in the middle and elementary schools is 15.2 15.3 Evolution motion thank you thank you it was about yes yes abstain thank you Mr Smith house is high yes Mr Homer yes yes adjustments second

086thanks Mr all in favor